"I am but a cowherd, great sir, and am the father of thirteen sons. But this one is unlike all the rest. He will do no labor, and cares for nothing but warlike sports, and seeing knights and battles. And day and night he craves for knighthood."
"What is thy name?" the king asked the young man.
The king looked at him closely. He was of handsome face, and was very well made and strong of limb and body.
"Where is the sword with which this youth shall be made knight?" asked the king.
"Then draw it from the scabbard, and require me to make you a knight."
At these words the youth sprang lightly and gladly from his mare, drew the sword, and kneeled before the king, asking him in earnest tones to make him a Knight of the Round Table.
"A knight I will make you," answered the king. "But the Round Table is not for untried youth."
Thereupon he smote him upon the neck with the sword, and said,--
"Be you a good knight, and I pray God you may be so. If you prove of prowess and worth I promise you shall in good time have a seat at the Round Table."
"Now, Merlin," said Arthur, "tell me whether this Tor will be a good knight or not."
"He should be so," answered Merlin, "for he comes of kingly blood. The cowherd here is no more his father than I, but he is the son of the good knight, King Pellinore, whose prowess you have much reason to know."
By good hap King Pellinore himself came next morning to the court, and was glad to find what honor had been done his son, whom he gladly acknowledged as his.
Then Merlin took Pellinore by the hand and led him to the seat next the Seat Perilous.
"This is your place at the Round Table," he said. "There is none here so worthy as yourself to sit therein."
At a later hour of that eventful day, in the city of London, and at the Church of Saint Stephen, King Arthur was wedded unto Dame Guenever, with the highest pomp and ceremony, and before as noble an assemblage of knights and ladies as the land held.
Afterwards a high feast was made, and as the knights sat, each in his appointed place, at the Round Table, Merlin came to them and bade them sit still.
"For you shall see a strange and marvellous happening," he said.
Hardly had he spoken before there came running a white hart into the hall, closely followed by a white brachet,[1] while thirty couple of black hounds in full cry came after, and chased the hart round the feasting boards and then round the Round Table.